King of the pier lands 42-pounder

Steve Waters on Outdoors

Just because you don't have a boat doesn't mean you can't catch some big saltwater fish.

Mike Weisman was fishing from Juno Pier recently when he landed a 42-pound kingfish.

"That's the biggest kingfish I've caught, period, and I've fished in the Bahamas," said Weisman, who weighed the fish at the pier on a new 50-pound Manley hand-held scale. "I had one between 35 and 40 pounds in the Bahamas, and I've caught quite a few kingfish in the 30-pound range."

Weisman, of Boynton Beach, used to fish offshore with a friend who was a commercial fisherman in Miami. After the friend moved, Weisman mostly has been limited to fishing from piers.

That hasn't kept him from catching nice fish. He once got a 30-pound kingfish at the Panama City Pier. Last summer at Juno he caught several kingfish up to 25 pounds. His best day there was two kings and eight bonito.

On this particular day, Weisman was fishing for jacks at Juno. There was a large school of jacks 20-25 pounds. Using an 8-foot spinning rod that he'd built and a Daiwa BG90 reel spooled with 20-pound Sufix Siege monofilament line, Weisman hooked one of the jacks on a 2-ounce single-hook Diamond Jig.

"It began running line off my reel when the hook suddenly pulled," Weisman said. "I reeled in the lure quickly, causing it to skip on the surface, so I could make another cast to the jacks when this kingfish just skyrocketed right in front of me 10 feet in the air.

"When it hit, it's not like it was slow motion, but I could see the lure in his mouth and I wasn't sure if it would stay. It was really exciting."

Weisman was fishing from the southeast corner of the pier's T when he hooked the big king. The first thing the fish did was run off about 175 yards of line.

While the fish ran, Weisman tried to get other anglers out of his way. His concern was that the king would tangle with another angler's line and his line would get cut.

"Fortunately, everything fell into place for me," said Weisman, who moved around the pier quite a bit as the kingfish ran east, then north, then ran toward the beach.

Just as Weisman left the T and headed to the beach, the king turned around and looked like it was going to go under the corner of the T. But the king turned around again, and Weisman put his reel into free spool and crossed his fingers. When Weisman got back to the T, his line was tangled with another angler's line, but he was able to get them untangled.

Near the end of the fight, which took about 20 minutes, the kingfish went under the pier. Weisman was able to get the king to swim out, then one of his buddies tossed out Weisman's pier gaff and got the fish -- some of which Weisman smoked and some of which he gave away -- on the first try.

Steve Waters can be reached at swaters@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4648.